We had a dramatic rain in Manhattan last week. I got caught in it. I was walking down 14th Street, heading toward Seventh Avenue, when it suddenly came crashing down, unexpectedly, at least for me who hadn’t bothered with the weather report. Totally drenched, I made my way to a corner with leaky scaffolding and crammed in there, underneath the wood planks, with about thirty other soaking people. The thunder was the most raucous and crackling I can recall in a long time, and the rain came down almost horizontally. A spotty dachshund cowered, but I felt free and good. Hard rain almost always lifts my spirits.

While waiting out the rain with my city mates, I thought of the backyard porch on Long Island where I grew up, which I loved especially when it rained hard. There I could be surrounded by rain but at the same time protected from it, just like on 14th Street. Our porch had a forest green canvas awning with white tassels, charmingly old-fashioned even back in the 1960s. During a hard rain I’d drag out my mother’s pasta pots and the bottom of our huge lobster cooker and set them up so they could collect rain water. That was a hobby of mine. I’d sit on the cushioned love seat and listen to the thunder and watch the pots fill with water. Why? Was I trying to catch what might be needed for family well-being? We weren’t likely to face a life-threatening drought in Nassau County, twenty miles east of Manhattan. Maybe it was an element of housekeeping imprinted in my DNA, or some ancient Puglian relative guiding my survival instinct. Whatever provoked me, I collected rain water, a lot of it. And this wasn’t just an early childhood urge, like making mud pies. Water collecting lasted well into my late teens.

Unfortunately we eventually replaced our green canvas awning with an Italian-American update, a white aluminum roof that made machine gun sounds whenever it as much as drizzled, ruining the experience completely. Luckily, that wasn’t too many years before I moved into Manhattan and replaced the awning experience with city scaffolding.

Rain water harvesting is illegal in some states, because some arcane laws say rain doesn’t belong to you. It belongs to someone who may have laid claim to it far in the past—a wheat farmer or a cowboy, possibly—even if a cascade is pouring off your roof. New York doesn’t have that ridiculous law, or didn’t that I knew of at the time. I can’t say I harvested the water, exactly. It was more like hoarding it. I’d keep it for a few days and then, as I recall, pour it around my father’s tomato plants. He asked me to do that.

My father often talked about rain. He’d say, we could use some rain, or we really need a good rain. When I was very young I wasn’t sure what needing rain meant, growing up in a place that didn’t seem to need anything. I soon learned that he meant he wanted his tomatoes to be well provided for. Now that I grow my own tomatoes, rain has an added importance. I need it.

In my opinion, tomatoes are nature’s greatest summer gift. A fine thing to do with them is to make an Italian-style rice salad, which is like a pasta salad but more authentically Italian. To cut down on excess wateriness in my rice salad, I slice the tomatoes into a filetto di pomodoro. That means I cut away all the seeds and watery gel from the inside of the tomatoes and then chop the remaining fillets. The deep red tomato bits look like a pile of rubies sitting on my counter (see the photo above). Don’t throw away those slippery seeds. You can take all that and throw it into a blender. Then you can easily strain it, making a thick tomato juice that’s great in a Bloody Mary, or for loosening up pastas or soups.

Quarter the tomatoes, and then cut out their insides, leaving the juicy, thick skin. Slice the skin into strips, and then cut the strips into little cubes (see the photo above). You’ve now got your filetto di pomodoro. For suggestions on what to do with the tomatoes’ insides, see the essay above.

Place the rice in a nice-looking serving bowl; one more wide than deep is best. Add the filetto di pomodoro, the corn, the shallot, the olives, and the pine nuts. Give it all a toss.

Whisk the miso together with the rice vinegar, the vermouth, and the garlic. Whisk in 2 tablespoons of olive oil. Season the vinaigrette with salt, black pepper, and a little pimenton d’espelette. Pour this over the rice, adding the basil, and toss well. Let the rice sit for about a half hour so all the flavors can blend. Now give it another toss, correct the seasoning if necessary, and serve.

Welcome to Ericademane.com

I am a chef, food writer, and teacher who specializes in improvisational Italian cooking. I am the author of The Flavors of Southern Italy and Pasta Improvvisata, as well as Williams-Sonoma Pasta, which is available at Williams-Sonoma stores. A member of the Association of Culinary Professionals and the Italian-based International Slow Food Movement, I live in New York City. I offer private cooking classes, which you can learn about here.